Politics
ICE Arrests New Bride After Her Husband Reported for Duty at a US Army Base: ‘She Got Ripped Away From Me’
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a new bride when her husband reported for active duty at a military base in Louisiana.
US Army staff sergeant Matthew Blank, 23, married Annie Ramos, 22, and they drove from Houston, Texas, to Fort Polk, where he was to report for a registration appointment on Thursday, April 2. However, when they arrived and signed into the base’s visitors’ center, they were shocked when ICE agents showed up to take Ramos away.
According to The Independent, Ramos is an undocumented migrant whose family brought her to the US when she was just a toddler. The couple were under the impression that their marriage would allow her to receive a green card, which would entitle her to apply for citizenship within three years of getting it.
However, she was never given the chance as she has since been arrested by ICE when they signed into the base with his military ID, her Honduran passport and their marriage license.
“Our plan was to drive over, bring her to the office to get her military ID and activate her military spouse benefits,” Blank told The New York Times. “She was going to move in after the Easter weekend. Instead, she got ripped away from me.”
The couple reportedly retained an immigration lawyer and were under the impression that they “were doing everything the right way.”
Ramos — a Sunday school teacher and college student who was months away from completing a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry — received a final order of removal by a judge in absentia in 2005, when she was 22 months old. The Department of Homeland Security told the Independent that this justified her arrest and potential deportation despite her marriage license and having never been to Honduras.
The couple is hoping their GoFundMe will help raise money to cover her legal fees as they attempt to get her released.
